Essence

The making moonshine Handbook, by Ola Norrman, describes how to make alcoholic spirits at home. Possibly the best book written on the subject, it describes in detail how you can make your own spirits.

Updated yearly, the Swedish version has sold over 100,000 books. And this in Sweden, where a super thriller sells 7,000 books in the same time frame! We now also offer the English version of “Hemmaframstallning av Sprit,” the leading book in its field in Sweden for over 20 years. This new version has been sold as a virtual book on the Internet since the summer of 1998.

NOTE: This process (making moonshine and home distilling) is illegal in some countries, as is even the construction of a distillation apparatus following the drawings in the book. It is however, information that can be read in all democratic countries. The information given in the book is not intended to encourage the manufacture of alcohol.

First of all, amateur distillation is for people who want to produce a quality product. It is not worth the effort of making moonshine a nice still, and taking time to ferment and distill if it will be done quickly and carelessly, if you are looking for quantity over quality. If you use bad tasting alcohol to make alcohol still and moonshine recipe, the finished product making moonshine will also taste bad, even if you use it as vodka. Who wants bad tasting vodka?

On the other hand, if one knows what to do (follow the book), uses quality yeast and ingredients, distills twice and distills as pure an alcohol as possible (temperature control) … and then dilutes the alcohol and purifies it with activated carbon … even if it only hold traces of volatiles left in the cooler from the fore shots and the head: one gets a premium vodka as a result. This can then be flavored to make outstanding liquor and liqueurs …or used simply as a vodka.

This is also why you must have a column still and not a pot still. If you try to make home distilling, cognac, slivowits, calvados, rum or another pot still distilled alcohol and making moonshine you must copy every single detail to have a result comparable to the liqueur industry’s, and you must mature your product under exactly the same conditions. This is impossible in practice. But to produce a pure alcohol, a premium vodka, is no problem, ever! Compare this to wine- or beer-brewing at home, and try to match a famous Bordeaux wine with the liquid in your demijohn.